It is desirable in many situations to monitor the quality of service of a service. One way of providing quality of service monitoring is to monitor the service at the point where that service is delivered, i.e. at the terminal that is running a service. In such situations, in general service quality metrics are measured at the terminal and are reported to an entity in the network that records and collates those measurements centrally.
Many different methods for service quality reporting for terminals have been proposed. For example, Real-time Transport Control Protocol (RTCP) and RTP Control Protocol eXtended Reports (RTCP XR) may be used for quality reporting on RTP based streaming services. Quality of Experience (QoE) reporting mechanisms are also specified in 3GPP TS 26.346, for example. Moreover, the Broadband Forum TR-069 specifies a protocol for communication between an Auto-Configuration Server (ACS) and Customer Premise Equipment (CPE). The Auto-Configuration Server (ACS) is a server within the service provider's network that has the ability to control and monitor a Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) with the Broadband Forum TR-069 protocol.
The present invention seeks to provide a method of and a device for service monitoring and of service monitoring management that alleviates at least some of the disadvantages of the prior art.